Building a Better Book of Shadows

When I first started getting interested in magic and neopaganism, I did a decent job of keeping journals about my own experience, but I didn't write down the things I was learning from other sources. I read voraciously, and I drew on my own knowledge of local folklore. I just didn't take notes. Part of it was the fear of it being discovered. I think I was also worried about committing to it without a reasonable amount of study. I wanted to know what was out there before I made up my mind.

For me, longhand writing has a different power than typing. Sure, I put my blood, sweat, and tears into typed work. But writing is serious. I have to commit to using up paper and ink, to choose my words carefully, to move my hand and arm (which is fucking hard with my health issues). The level of involvement with the text is so much higher. That's why I purposely avoid handwriting text that I'm going to edit heavily: I don't want early drafts to survive.

A Book of Shadows isn't usually edited, but it does evolve over time, and organization can be an issue, so of course keeping it digital is a great choice. But I have to do things the hard way. So instead of doing the reasonable thing, I determined to write out everything I want to include in my BOS by hand and organize it in a binder, with the goal of recopying it in a suitably pretty blank book down the road.

Yeah, magic doesn't fix bullheadedness.

Why the effort? you're probably asking. Believe me, I've asked myself the same damn thing for months now. The simple answer is that my words are how I manifest magic in my life. Whether I type them or speak them they have power, but to write them out by hand gives them a soul. If I suffer (or just have more pain than usual) for my art, that gives it that much more oomph. It shows just how serious I am about what I do.

So yes, I may be making a very impractical choice, but I honestly feel that it is the best choice for me. However you go about keeping a Book of Shadows, or whether you keep one at all, is up to you. What matters is that you put your heart into what you're doing.